There may be no better time to focus on customer loyalty than the holiday season. With so many purchasing options, travel plans taking your customers all over, and sales popping up left and right, keeping your loyal customers choosing your business over others can be tricky.
Shifting your marketing to focus more on retaining your current customers while still bringing in new customers is key to keeping your loyal customers coming in during the holidays.
Whether you host a holiday party for your business or take part in Small Business Saturday, spend some of your holiday budget on celebrating the loyalty of your current customers. You can offer specific discounts to longtime customers or host an event with drinks and snacks to shop or just hang out with other members of your community.
You can also give your customers that extra push to come visit you during the holidays by creating an incentive for them. For example, if you have a rewards program, you can offer bonus points for your customers that come in anytime during the holiday months, during specific times of the holidays, or even multiple times during the season. This helps reinforce repeat visits while also offering your customers a reward for coming into your business during a less convenient time.
Not only can you use your rewards program’s offerings to get your customers into your business, but you can also host other contests or raffles to keep them coming in. Offer a raffle entry to any of your customers that comes in more than once during the holidays, or anyone that spends a certain amount of money at your business.
Marketing can get expensive during the holidays, so using low-cost and free channels like social media can help you save while still actively promoting your business.
Social media is also the easiest way to reach your customers and followers. Ask questions during this time of year: see what types of products or services your customers want in the new year, what’s on their wishlist or even just how they’re spending their holidays.
You can also host a social campaign where you post photos of your customers that they’ve contributed to your Facebook photo campaigns to further hammer home the customer appreciation aspect of the season.
Don’t just focus on your most loyal customers – think about how you can bring those past customers back in after several months or a year. You can tailor some email marketing campaigns to these customers, offering them a special discount or letting them know what changes you’ve made since their last visit with you. If your list is small enough, try to personalize these emails with how long it’s been since you’ve seen them and what you think they’d like about your business now.
No matter what angle you take, boosting customer loyalty during the holidays is a critical step toward ensuring that those customers stick with you next year. The holidays make it more difficult for your customers to come to you – give them more reasons to and you’ll see a surge during this season.
How do you make sure your customers are coming in during the holidays? Let us know in the comments below.
